Hurghada - All Change!

Hurghada - Carrefour Supermarket (It's Bigger Than it Looks!)

Not only are there improvements afoot in El Andalous, even Hurghada is undergoing quite a few changes of late.

We’ve got two new supermarkets in Hurghada now – Best Way and Carrefour. Carrefour (yes, that’s right, the French supermarket chain) has been rumoured to be opening for about six years. I’d been following all the rumours on the internet before I moved over here – people couldn’t even agree where it was supposed to be, so it was quite hard to get people to believe it was opening. This wasn’t helped by the precise date changing each time the so-called opening day approached. Nevertheless, crowds of people stormed the supermarket on the first day. A Carrefour hypermarket is still rumoured to be planned further north of Hurghada.

The current store is a pretty decent size with a fresh fish counter and bakery and it sells some non-food items, too (eg, kitchen utensils, televisions, etc). Price-wise it is comparable to Spinneys with some different items in store, but less of them, than in Spinneys. Still, it gives residents a bigger choice of things to buy, which is great. Spinneys is still by far the largest supermarket in Hurghada and has the convenience of being situated in a mall.

Best Way is also a reasonable size and sells a wider variety of non-food items than Carrefour and possibly a wider selection of European items, for a cost. You can even buy a bicycle there and it has its own in-house cafe where Safi and I had coffee and cake (well, only I had the cake). I keep on thinking about buying a bicycle, but each time I come to the conclusion that I don’t need it and won’t use it.

Anything that increases the amount of choice is a good thing and both openings have been greeted with much enthusiasm, particularly since many of the Abu Ashara supermarkets have closed.

What’s maybe even more exciting is that the much-rumoured new airport terminal has also opened and is now operational. Hopefully, this will bring lots of people to Hurghada and improve the economy. I guess it will take a while for it to be fully operational with shops and everything and I’ve yet to find out whether it’s now one terminal for International flights and one terminal for local flights or whether it’s one is Arrivals and the other is Departures.

President Sisi even came to open it; all the roads were cleaned and long-outstanding repairs hastily completed so that Hurghada could look good for his arrival. I believe they even removed the speed bumps for when he was here and then put them back as soon as he left!

In Sahl Hasheesh, we now have a wonderful new restaurant called Chez Paul. I had a steak there and it was delicious; I’ve booked a table there with Safi for their New Year’s Eve celebrations as they are charging a reasonable 290 LE (vs 600 LE at El Gusto and 1200+ LE at Premier Romance). I’m looking forward to tomato soup, waldorf salad with shrimps (could have had smoked salmon and caviar), a T-bone steak (could have chosen roast turkey), banana flambé, and an Irish coffee! There’s also seasonal entertainment such as belly dancers.

In addition, El Andalous now has its own small fruit and vegetable store, also selling fresh juices to take away. I believe the prices are quite high, but I guess that’s for the convenience of not having to go all the way to Spinneys in a taxi. We also now have our own pharmacy attached to El Andalous with a doctor available; another valuable service, even if we all hope we won’t need it!

I’m curious to see what the new year will bring. One big rumour on my list to watch is the opening of the Hurghada aquarium in January; going by the artist’s pictures, it looks as if it also contains something like a mini Eden project with a tropical forest in the building as well. We shall see!